Drowse-inducing scholarship aside, footnotes can be fun. They can provide hilarious counterpoint to the text (Will Cuppy), an entire alternative narrative (Vladimir Nabokov), the ruminations and reflections of an over-flowing intelligence (David Foster Wallace), or the opportunity to shoehorn in anecdotes one can’t find space for otherwise (Not infrequently, me). In Louis Riel, Brown’s footnotes amplified his text, explained his choices between competing “facts,” afforded voice to others’ differing views, and revealed what he had made-up, overlooked, exaggerated, got wrong, guessed at, can’t explain, and flat-out falsified, wonderfully illustrating the unreliability of historical “truth.” I hoped Ed’s footnotes would provide insight into Brown’s magic. I wanted his thoughts on from where those pygmies and perversions, plot loops and dimension jumps had come. I hoped to have his genius, wars-and-all, self-investigated.